Wire guides are elongate flexible members used to provide a path along which another medical device can be moved. The path provided by the wire guide can be used to navigate another medical device, such as a catheter, through a body vessel. The use of wire guides to define such a path is known in the art. Briefly, a wire guide is navigated through a body vessel toward a point of treatment. Once positioned within the vessel, a second medical device, frequently a cannula such as a catheter, is placed over the wire guide and moved along its length toward the point of treatment. Thus, the wire guide provides an established path for placing other devices, eliminating the need for performing delicate navigation procedures for each device passed into the vessel.
During placement of a wire guide, an operator must navigate the wire guide through the vessel(s). Often, the vessel defines a torturous path due to the presence of natural bends and/or curves, or unnatural impediments, such as tumors, build-ups, and/or strictures. The presence of a torturous path may make navigation of a wire guide difficult. For example, the presence of an impediment may block the wire guide from navigating further into the vessel.
The prior art contains many examples of wire guides having straight flexible tips intended to aid in the navigation around such impediment. The presence of a straight flexible tip, however, may in fact make navigation more difficult. For example, upon encountering an impediment, the straight flexible tip may bend toward one of the vessel walls, which may result in unintended contact between the tip and vessel wall. This situation may lead to undesirable effects in the vessel wall. Further, the straight tip may bend and turn back upon itself upon encountering the impediment. This formation of an unstable turn in the wire guide makes further navigation difficult.